Lensfun - an issue to sort out ?

[pdussart]

Dear,

There are a lot of threads about missing lenses and cameras. Is this a surprise ?

I do not think so. According to the Github Lensfun site, the last update is 2019-02-16 !
The guy who ran this Github site now runs a private business and sells updated lens databases

Some lenses of the free Lensfun database were already missing two years ago, like half of the Sigma Art series, the best Zeiss series, etc.

Affinity competes with other software companies. Some of them use an updated lenses list and refresh it regularly.

Affinity Photo is an ambitious photo program, the present lens database is a weakness and helps  people with an old kit.
Metadata management and picture organization (DAM) are also weak.

Hopefully release 2 with come with fully fledged solutions for these three points and be worth the investment.

Regards, Philippe

[Riot]

I have to agree that its pretty disappointing that a professional paid product is relying on an out of date free GitHub repository as their main lens correction database. Affinity's develop persona really does have quite a bit of ground to make up in order to compete with Adobe in a meaningful way. It doesn't handle multiple photos, or lens profiles well at all. At least they finally got their ducks sorted for some of the latest cameras that came out (Apple dropped the ball hard and didn't push their raw camera update to anyone who's not using MacOS 11... and expecting that professional users upgrade to a new OS built on an entirely new architecture is wild. I also work as a musician/audio professional and I'd have to shell out THOUSANDS to upgrade my software to work with that)

I hope someones able to comment on whether this is something they are working on for a future release, cause the develop persona needs a lot of work. It could be great with a decent lens data base and the ability to bulk process. Sure you can create profiles for your raw develops, but I'm not creating a profile every time I import photos. Thats a mess. Even a way to copy and past would be great. 

[pdussart]

Dear all,

As part, of the 1.9.1 Affinity Photo announcement, there is an updated list of camera and lenses. It is better than the Lensfun one as per Github.

Some lenses widely sold like Sigma 24-70 zoom of the Art series are missing, etc.
The present list is an improvement.

I think that Serif should make clear where this new list comes from. The reference to Lensfun is misleading, as the Lensfun database is not updated for 2 years.
This new list might be a license of the commercial PTlens list, which is "old" Lensfun + recent updates.

The PT lens service is interesting, as you can get a lens profile of your lens (if not part of the data base), should you provide a series of pictures, as per instructions of PTlens maker.

Serif/Affinity Photo could be clearer, provide some kind of single point of access to this topic (e.g. direct link from Affinity Photo through the Help or the Studio links) with explanations. The Help section should be updated end extended for clarity
I mean not just a list of the lenses available, but also how it works and how to request a new lens to be added, etc

Regards, Philippe

[Woodkopf]

I am in agreement with the comments written above.  I find it surprising and disappointing that the latest Affinity Photo release has only just included support for the Panasonic Lumix S1 & S1R cameras that were released in March 2019, also, there are no lenses included to support those cameras.  The news items stated on the 'Lensfun' site 2 years ago, requested anyone to help with the database as the person had not much time to devote to maintaining the database.

This reflects badly on Serif as obviously owners of new photographic equipment want to be able to use them to the fullest extent, not years later.  Without DAM and new equipment support this is ample ammunition for competitors to utilise against Affinity Photo.

Please can we have some serious comments from the management team?

[Kameratrollet]

Lensfun has been updated all the time. Latest change of code was 2021-09-18.

With that said, just take the samples yourself. It takes 5 minutes to create a distortion profile for Lensfun.

It takes 1 minute to take the minimum raw samples for vignetting correction.